Resurgence of the Kontsevich-Zagier series (Q660445)

Conjectures about asymptotic behaviour of power series (perturbative) expansions of quantum invariants have been at the forefront of quantum topology. Such questions are typically studied using tools from algebraic geometry, number theory, and representation theory. Garoufalidis has a programme which he is pursuing with coauthors to use analytic tools in order to simultaneously prove a number of these conjectures, including the Volume Conjecture and Witten's Asymptotic Expansion Conjecture. This paper focuses on analytic properties of the Kontsevich-Zagier formal power series \[ f(q)=\sum_{n=0}^\infty (1-q)\cdots(1-q^n), \] which arises from perturbative invariants of the trefoil. Results are derived from an explicit formula for the Borel transform of this formal power series at \(q=e^{\frac{1}{x}}\). The authors speculate that the good analytic properties of the Kontsevich-Zagier series may continue to hold for perturbative expansions of suitable versions of Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants and of Kashaev invariants for all knotted object in \(3\)-manifolds (Conjecture 1.4). This would imply the Volume Conjecture and several other asymptotic expansion conjectures, and would lead to an analytic proof of a celebrated result of \textit{K. Habiro} regarding relationships between various power series invariants [``On the quantum \(sl_2\) invariants of knots and integral homology spheres'', Geom. Topol. Monogr. 4, 55--68 (2002; Zbl 1040.57010)].